R093 TA3: Work Planning and Workflow
Breaking a project into tasks, putting them in an order that works, and planning for the thing that will go wrong.
What a work plan contains
A work plan turns a project into something that can be tracked.
| Element | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Task | One unit of work with a clear finish |
| Duration | How long the task takes |
| Sequence | The order tasks happen in |
| Dependency | A task that cannot start until another finishes |
| Milestone | A fixed checkpoint, often a client sign off |
| Resources | The people, equipment, software and locations needed |
| Contingency | Spare time deliberately built in for problems |
| Critical path | The chain of dependent tasks that sets the shortest possible project length |
Gantt charts
Tasks down the left, time across the top, one bar per task. Overlapping bars are tasks running in parallel; bars that start where another ends are dependencies. A Gantt chart answers the two questions a client asks: what are you doing now, and will it be ready on time.
You cannot edit footage that has not been shot, and you cannot shoot without a location booked. Saying "editing depends on filming, so filming has to finish first" shows you understand sequencing, which is what the question is testing.
Workflow and the production phases
Every media product moves through the same three phases, and knowing what belongs in each is examinable.
| Phase | Contains |
|---|---|
| Pre-production | Brief, research, ideas, planning documents, asset sourcing, scheduling, booking, risk assessment |
| Production | Filming, recording, photographing, designing, building, writing code |
| Post-production | Editing, grading, mixing, effects, testing, review, export, distribution |
Why the order cannot be rushed
Teams that skip pre-production to "get started" spend the saved time three times over in post-production, because every missing decision has to be made late, with less information and more already built on top of it.
Version control
- Save a new version at each significant stage rather than overwriting
- Use a naming convention that sorts correctly:
poster-v03-client-review.svg - Never use "final" in a file name. There is always a
final-final-2 - Keep the layered working file as well as every export
- Back up in a second location, because one copy is not a backup
- Pre-production plans it: brief, research, documents, schedule, licences.
- Production makes it: filming, recording, designing, building.
- Post-production finishes it: editing, mixing, testing, export.
- Each floor hands something specific to the one above it.
- Skip the bottom floor and the decisions do not disappear: they arrive late.
Risk, contingency and resources
Risks worth planning for
| Risk | Typical contingency |
|---|---|
| Equipment failure | Spare battery, spare card, a second camera |
| A contributor pulling out | A reserve interviewee; shoot the flexible material first |
| Weather | An indoor alternative and a reserve date |
| Software or file corruption | Versioned saves and an off site backup |
| An asset turning out to be unlicensed | Clear licences before production, not after |
| Underestimated edit time | Contingency days before the deadline, not after |
Resources
- People and their availability, which is usually the real constraint
- Equipment, booked rather than assumed
- Locations, with permission in writing
- Software and hardware, with the version checked
- Time, which is the only one that cannot be bought more of
"I would work faster" is not contingency. Contingency is naming a specific risk, saying what you would do instead, and putting the spare time in the plan where it is needed. A plan that finishes exactly on the deadline has no contingency at all.
- Plot each risk by how likely it is and how much damage it would do. Plan most carefully for the top right.
- Every risk gets a contingency, a plan B, written down before the shoot.
Key terms you must be able to define
- Work plan
- A schedule of tasks, durations, dependencies, milestones and resources for a project.
- Gantt chart
- A bar chart of tasks against time, showing sequence, overlap and dependencies.
- Dependency
- A task that cannot begin until another has finished.
- Milestone
- A fixed checkpoint in a project, often a client sign off.
- Contingency
- Spare time or an alternative plan deliberately built in for problems.
- Critical path
- The sequence of dependent tasks that determines the shortest possible project duration.
- Version control
- Keeping numbered versions of files so earlier states can be recovered.
Flashcards
Say the definition out loud before you flip the card. Retrieving it from memory is what builds recall, reading it again is not.
Reach the top grade on this topic
Answers reach the top band by being specific to the product described. Not "you need a work plan to stay organised" but "filming is on day four, so the location permission and the contributor confirmation have to be milestones on day two, and the two contingency days belong before the client review rather than after it."
Mistakes that cost marks here
- Listing tasks with no durations, order or dependencies, which is a to do list rather than a work plan.
- Planning to finish exactly on the deadline, which leaves no contingency at all.
- Calling 'working harder' a contingency plan.
- Putting post-production tasks in the production phase.
- Overwriting one file throughout instead of keeping versions.
- Using 'final' in a filename.
The critical path method was developed in the 1950s for building chemical plants and launching missiles. The same maths now decides whether a two minute YouTube video gets finished on time.
Knowledge check
Exam-style questions
Five written questions in the style of the real paper. Write a full answer, then let the marker check it against the mark scheme.
- LTasks
- LDurations or deadlines
- LDependencies, milestones, resources or contingency
The tasks to be completed, the duration of each, and the dependencies showing which tasks must finish before others can begin.
- LA dependency means one task cannot start until another finishes
- LA relevant example from video production
- LThe consequence of getting it wrong
A dependency is a task that cannot begin until another has finished, and in a video production the chain is strict: the script has to exist before the storyboard, the storyboard before the shoot, and the footage before any editing. Identifying these means the schedule puts them in a workable order and the resources are booked for the right days. If they are missed, an editor is booked for a week in which no footage exists, which wastes the booking and pushes the whole project past its deadline, because every later task sits behind the delay.
- LA genuine risk is identified
- LA specific, workable contingency for it
- LA second, different risk
- LA specific contingency for the second
One risk is that the business turns out to be too busy or too noisy on the filming day, so usable audio cannot be recorded. The contingency is to agree a reserve date before the first one and to record a clean voiceover separately, so the project does not depend on usable location sound. A second risk is losing the footage to a corrupted memory card, which would be unrecoverable within four weeks. The contingency is to copy the card to two separate drives on the day of the shoot before the card is reused, so no single failure can destroy the only copy.
- LTasks are broken down across the three deliverables
- LDependencies between tasks are identified
- LParallel work is identified where possible
- LA shared asset or brand decision is recognised as coming first
- LMilestones or client sign off points are placed
- LThe print deadline is treated as fixed
- LContingency is included and justified
- LConsequences of poor planning are explained with a judgement
The first move is to separate the work into tasks per deliverable and then look for what they share, because the three products are not independent: all of them need the same palette, typography and photography, so the brand decisions and a single photo shoot should sit at the front of the plan and feed all three. That turns one shoot into assets for the poster, the video and the page instead of three separate pieces of production. After that, dependencies set the order. The poster cannot be artworked until the images and the headline are approved, the video cannot be edited until the footage exists, and the landing page cannot be built until the copy and assets are ready, although the page's structure can be wireframed in parallel with filming because it does not depend on the footage. Printing is the hardest constraint in the whole plan: a printer needs files several days before delivery and will not accept late changes, so the print sign off milestone has to be set roughly a week before the campaign date and everything upstream of it scheduled backwards from there. The video and the page are more forgiving, since both can be updated after publication. Milestones belong at the points where a mistake would be expensive: brand sign off before any artwork, image approval before artworking, and a final client review before the print file is sent. Contingency of three or four days should sit immediately before the print deadline rather than at the end of the project, because that is where a delay cannot be absorbed. Planned badly, the likely failures are predictable: a shoot run after artwork has started, so the images do not fit the layout; the page and the poster using different colours because the brand decisions were made twice; and most seriously the print file arriving late, which cannot be solved with extra effort because the printer's schedule is outside the agency's control. That is the consequence worth emphasising, since the video and the page can be fixed after release and the poster cannot be fixed at all once it is printed.